Hi everyone. I just want to ask you all, is there any equivalent expression for this phrase, 血の華を咲かせる. if i was to translate it literally, it would be "Blooming a flower of blood" and just doesn't stick well for me. Anyone have an idea? Edit: The full sentence is this. そして兵士たちの戦列に斬り込むや、携えた日本刀を振るい、血の華を咲かせる
Context would help a bit more, but if it were used to describe a wound, then "fountain of blood" should be analogous.
Is this in the middle of a sentence or the end? As the others have said the context will shape how you change the direct translation.
そして兵士たちの戦列に斬り込むや、携えた日本刀を振るい、血の華を咲かせる With her Japanese Sword she break through the soldier line, and blooming a flower of blood
"Wielding her sword, she broke through the line of soldiers leaving fountains of blood in her wake." I took some liberties to adjust it a bit.
A literal translation would be "making flowers of blood bloom." There’s nothing I can think of that’s so poetic as that in English. I’d go with something like: "And he/she rushed into the line of soldiers, immediately laying about with his/her katana and wreaking bloody carnage."
Thanks both of you. Your suggestion is really appreciated Maybe i will go with "As she break through into the line of soldiers with her Japanese sword, leaving bloody carnage behind."
A couple of points to consider: I swapped the main actions and the time clause around in my suggested translation to sound smoother. That’s just my preference. A more literal translation is, "And as soon as she rushed into the line of soldiers, she swung her katana and made flowers of blood bloom." 〜に斬り込む - rush into ~ There is no meaning of going "through" the line here, just "at" or "into." This verb's clause gets the character to the location of the main action. She doesn't leave anything behind or in her wake in this sentence. 〜や - as soon as ~, immediately after ~ing With AやB, the A action and B action don’t actually happen together. The A action happens first, then the B action happens immediately after. The や can mean they seem to happen together, but they don't really. 携えた日本刀を振るい Both 携える and 振るう can be translated as "wield," but 携える means to carry or hold a weapon. 振るう means to actively fight with a weapon. Also, 携える is describing 日本刀 but 振るう is what the character is doing with the 日本刀. You should stress the action. A very literal translation is: "(she) swung the katana that (she) held and…" Also, 振るう is in continuative form, so the character is doing 振るう and 咲かせる together.
Hmm okay noted. I actually just trying to combine both of your sentences, and it seems i butchering the translation because of that.
I'm always doing that to myself. I'll think of three different ways to translate something, then try to combine them so I can use them all. Then I'll check the final product against the original Japanese sentence and realize I lost important parts of the meaning somewhere along the way.
Another point. Don't try to combine our sentences. I gave you a very liberally adjusted sentence that flows well in English. It may or may not contain the original meaning as IlkatSumil pointed out. It's very hard to keep the meaning and find a good analogy when translating. Good luck!